Research Mission of a Conflict Resolution Center

1. Research Mission of a Conflict Resolution Center Jonathan Wilkenfeld Professor and Director Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) University of Maryland December 2009

3. CIDCM Datasets • Polity • Minorities at Risk (MAR) • Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) • International Crisis Behavior (ICB) • Mediating Intrastate Crises (MISC)

5. CIDCM Academic and Policy Analyses • Endeavor to link academic to policy • Turning to Terrorism – Middle East • Peace and Conflict Ledger

6. TURNING TO TERROR Jonathan Wilkenfeld CIDCM, START University of Maryland

7. Ethnic Identity in the World • More than 5,000 ethnic groups globally (UNDP 2004) • Two-thirds of the world’s countries have at least one minority that is 10% or more of its population • The Minorities at Risk project (MAR) has identified nearly 2,000 socially significant ethnic groups that comprise at least 100,000 people or 1% of a country’s population • MAR estimates that nearly 1 in 7 people in the world face some sort of discrimination based on ethnic identity

8. Why study ethnic organizations? • 7 of the 10 deadliest organizations have ethnically based ideology or membership, in full or in part (1998-2005 data) • MAR data demonstrates some broad preconditions for ethnic groups to use violence or terrorism, not which specific organizations may use terrorism • Most ethnic groups are represented by multiple organizations that use different mixes of strategies (violent and nonviolent).

9. Broader Policy Implications • Key problem with terrorism research is its exclusive focus on organizations that engage in terrorism. • This limits the questions we can ask. • By focusing on ethnic organizations around the world, we have a natural control group: • We can now ask why some organizations choose violence and terrorism and others do not • We can ask why some groups start and why some groups stop using terrorism

10. Global Ethnic Militancy Countries with at least one militant, ethnically based organization

11. What is Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior? • The MAROB project collects and analyzes data on organizations that have their core support in ethnic groups • MAROB includes both violent and nonviolent organizations • Currently, complete data available for the Middle East and North Africa, 1980-2004 • Additional regions to be released soon include post-Communist states, Western Europe and Latin America

12. Growth in Middle East Ethnic Organizations

13. Ideological Change- Middle East

14. Political Strategies Among Middle East Ethnic Organizations

15. Why Ethnic Terrorism • Organizations professing a democratic ideology are significantly less likely engage in terrorism • Organizations with the following characteristics are more likely to engage in terrorism: • Separatism • Rhetoric justifying violence • Foreign Support • State Repression • Organizations that do not have a democratic ideology and have all the factors above have an 89% likelihood of engaging in terrorism

16. Changes in Ethnic Terrorism

17. CIDCM Academic and Policy Analyses • Endeavor to link academic to policy • Turning to Terrorism – Middle East • Peace and Conflict Ledger

18. Peace and Conflict 2010 Joseph HewittJonathan WilkenfeldTed Gurr CIDCM University of Maryland

19. Over the past two years, the risks of instability and conflicthave increased significantly in the regions of the world where those dangers were already very high.

20. What is one of the most serious threats to international stability? The recurrence of armed hostilities in conflicts that have recently come to an end.

21. Peace and Conflict 2010 Making cutting edge academic research accessible to the policy community Open-source data Commitment to transparency Available from Paradigm Publishers

22. Peace and Conflict Ledger What does the Peace and Conflict Ledger measure? The risk of an instability event occurring in a country in the next three years.

23. Some Key Details The focus is on how structural attributes of states influence the risk of instability Four domains of government activity (economics, politics, security, and social) Estimated a statistical model on data from 1950-2003 (training data) Obtain country risk estimates by inputting 2007 values for all countries

24. Indicators – The Usual Suspects

25. Risks of Instability, 2008-2010

26. Instability Risk: Top 25

27. Instability Risk: Top 25 (cont.)

28. Significant Increase in Risk MAURITANIA • Tenuous democratic transition begins in 2005 • Continued low-intensity violence in Mali and Algeria BURUNDI • Democratic transition begins in 2005 • Renewed fighting in neighboring DRC (2007) NIGERIA • Renewed fighting in neighboring Chad (2005) and Niger (2007) DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO • Transition to partial democracy • Poor performance on other indicators

29. Sources of Increased Risk? Democratization Recurring Armed Conflict

30. New and Recurring Conflict, 1946-2007 Number of Conflict Onsets

31. Recently Terminated Conflicts and Prospects for Recurrence, 1946-2007 Number of Recently Terminated Conflicts

32. Conclusion Devastating costs of state failure Stay tuned Diagnostic tools for policy-makers to support effective policies to mitigate conflict risks

33. CIDCM Academic and Policy Analyses • Endeavor to link academic to policy • Turning to Terrorism – Middle East • Peace and Conflict Ledger • Instability Alert List • Early Warning Data System (EWARDS) Simulation and Experimentation